ALMOST 21 million people are victims of forced labour globally, trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and they cannot leave, according to a new International Labour Organisation study.
And the ILO says the situation of workers in the occupied Arab territories is extremely worrying and remains precarious.
According to an ILO report released on the sidelines of the ongoing International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, it was noted that Africa, the central and south-eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States region CSEE and CIS had the highest prevalence rate figure at 4.2 and 4.0 per 1,000 inhabitants, respectively.
But the ILO cited the Asia-Pacific region as having the largest number of forced labourers in the world at 11.7 million, representing about 56 per cent of the 21 million global tallies.
The study further highlighted that Africa came second from the Asia-Pacific region with 3.7 million 18 per cent, followed by Latin America with 1.8 million nine per cent.
The Developed Economies came at the bottom with 1.5 million seven per cent, with an estimated 600,000 forced labourers in the Middle East.
“This means that three out of every 1,000 people worldwide are in forced labour today,” the ILO study read. “It is the lowest in the Developed Economies and European Union at 1.5 per 1,000 inhabitants.”
The study revealed that 90 per cent 18.7 million of the affected individuals were exploited in the private economy by individuals or enterprises.
“Of these, 4.5 million 22 per cent are victims of forced sexual exploitation and 14.2 million 68 per cent are victims of forced labour exploitation in economic activities, such as agriculture, construction, domestic work or manufacturing,” the report read in part.
“Looking at the age of forced labourers, 5.5 million 26 per cent are below 18 years old.”
The study indicated further that the remaining 2.2 million or 10 per cent were in state-imposed forms of forced labour, for example in prisons, or in work by the state military or by rebel armed forces.
“This figure 21 million like the previous one in 2005, represents a conservative estimate given the strict methodology employed to measure this largely hidden crime,” the ILO stated.
“Human trafficking can also be regarded as forced labour, and so this estimate captures the full realm of human trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation or what some call ‘modern-day slavery’. This figure means that around three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are in forced labour at any given point in time.”
The ILO further states that the practice was extremely difficult to quantify and research because being a criminal activity, it was most hidden, out-of-sight of law enforcement and administrative personnel and invisible to the public at large.
“The ILO is working with governments to assist them to measure forced labour in their country, but so far only a handful of countries have been able to undertake special surveys on this topic,” the report read in part.
ILO’s Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour director Beate Andrees said attention should now turn to better identification and prosecution of forced labour and related offences such as human trafficking.
“We have come a long way over the last seven years since we first put an estimate on how many people were forced into labour or services across the world. We have made good progress in ensuring most countries now have legislation in place which criminalises forced labour, human trafficking and slavery-like practices,” Andrees said.
And another ILO report on the situation of workers of the Occupied Arab territories, released during the three-week International Labour Conference in Geneva that comes to a close on June 14, 2012, states that the international response to the Palestinian and Israeli peace stalemate was weaker than before.
“This is above all due to the realities of the occupation on the ground and unabated expansion of Israeli settlements, leading to a shrinking space for Palestinian development,” outgoing ILO director-general Juan Somavia states in the report’s preface.
“The peace process is at a standstill more than at any time since the Oslo Accords of 1993.”
Somavia is quoted in the report as saying the evolving facts on the ground involving Palestine and Israel seriously diminishes the scope for a negotiated two-state solution.
“This is due to a particularly damaging combination of political intransigence, the incapacity of outside actors to assist the parties or effectively exercise influence on them, volatility in the region, and the elusiveness of Palestinian reconciliation,” he stated.
Somavia stated that for the issue to be resolved, there was need for a development and peace logic based on a long-term vision of the economic, employment and security interests of all workers in both the occupied Arab territories and Israel.
Labour Law Now! 
Posted on June 13, 2012
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